Family of 5: 2 adults, 3 kids two of which are now adults but I’m in denial.
Unbelievably, our first time flying Virgin from Heathrow!
After many trips to Orlando, we’d been considering a West Coast road trip as one last family holiday before they go off and do their own thing.
As we’re based near Glasgow airport, and since Virgin removed the Glasgow service we’ve mainly been flying BA GLA-LGW-TPA. However it’s got more difficult since BA dropped the frequency of the Gatwick flight, and then decided to become terrible at being an airline (see my last few trip reports. viewtopic.php?f=21&t=301481 .)
Thus for our West Coast trip we just wanted something smooth with no transfers which isn’t possible from Scotland so we took the crazy decision to drive 7 hours and 400 miles to Heathrow.
Spanner 1, I changed jobs after booking and the new job had different fixed holiday dates but I managed to get it sorted, albeit I now had to drive to Heathrow on a reduced timescale.
Spanner 2, engine management light came on the car the night before. I plugged it into the laptop and found it was due to a hole in the exhaust and the particulate matter sensor being grumpy so nothing that would stop the drive, albeit it went into limp mode for 375 miles.
Spanner 3, we arrived at the cattery only to find they’d gone out of business the previous month and hadn’t told any of the bookings. Thankfully some family stepped up to do the honours but as a result of all the above, didn’t leave Glasgow until 7.30pm and arrived at the Premier Inn Solihull at midnight.
After a cracking breakfast, we left Solihull at 11am and arrived at Purple Parking at 12.30pm. I decided not to do T3 meet and greet as I wanted to park the car myself and keep my own keys but this wasn’t explained up front that they move your car (but still keep it on site).
Forgot to say as we’d booked as a package with Virgin Holidays (flight and car) it meant we only paid a deposit back in January and we could pre-book our seats the week before. Only the website wouldn’t let us, kept trying to charge us. In the end we phoned up and they said all of us had to be members of the Flying Club (so I signed up the boys) and be part of a family group (which to this day I still haven’t managed to link). Anyway we got 66FGHJK up the back of the plane so online checkin was a breeze.
Arrived on the shuttle bus to T3 for the very first time, and I was impressed how shiny it was, all glass and spacious. Went to the self check in terminals to get baggage tags but became stuck, couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t proceed. So I stuck my hand up to request help, to the amusement of the ground crew who told me that wasn’t the usual way! Turned out the terminal was having an off day and wasn’t allowing scrolling, so he moved us to another and helped us through the process. Bags briskly dropped, no queue at security and I looked but could’t find the secret UC door to bypass Duty Free!
Had a wander about T3, much nicer and less hectic than T5, better shops. At 3.30 the flight was called and we went down to the gate. What surprised me here is the lack of views of the aeroplanes, and also the weird crossover. We couldn’t get to the gate for 10 minutes because there was a flight disembarking and they don’t allow the passengers to mix. I don’t think I’ve seen this arrangement at any other airport, most are on two levels.
No queue at the gate and the kids were handed string bags with fidget toys, haven’t seen a Virgin kids pack in years from Glasgow or Manchester! Straight onto G-VBEL Lady Freedom at 3.40pm and up to the back where annoyingly the Vera system doesn’t allow us to watch anything before takeoff. Also annoying is the total lack of phone signal at this part of LHR.
At seat amenities were a blanket, pillow, and over ear headphones. My recent experience of BA has been pillows that do nothing to stop bottom numbness on the thin 777 seats and useless in-ear headphones. I am pleased to report I could hear fine and the 787 seats are so comfortable my bottom didn’t even require the pillow, My boys also made use of the under-seat power rather than the USB connections. I was surprised to see a thread about a forthcoming 787 refresh because VBEL is wearing well but I guess it’s one of the newer ones at ‘only’ 7 years old.
Despite boarding quickly and early, we sat about before pushing back on time but didn’t take off until 4.45pm on runway 27L. Got settled down to watch some TV but soon there was the familiar call that some people were having issues with Vera and the entire system had to be reset, losing all progress. My main issue with Vera is I frequently get interrupted by the family and that causes me to miss parts of what I’m watching. The rewind function is very clunky and could use a YouTube style back 20 seconds button.
Entertainment-wise, I played games, listened to music, watched Looney Tunes movie, started a very slick and polished documentary about the Monaco grand prix, and about 2 hours of sleep.
We pre-booked the meals via the website, all of us lumping for marinated chicken breast in sunblush tomato cream sauce with potato & green beans. I can’t remember what the vegetarian option was, I usually take the veggie option so the fact I can’t remember means it didn’t sound appealing at all. Menus weren’t handed out beforehand but maybe that was because I’d pre-ordered (also got served first). This was 1.5 hours after takeoff, and preceded by a round of drinks.
Second lot of food was cheese & onion toastie about 7 hours into the flight. Then 9 hours into the flight they served high tea, with assorted sandwiches including cheese and pickle. The food was too much for myself and my wife, my boys didn’t care for it too much but ate enough.
Overall the crew were brilliant, it was a joy to have a bunch who were attentive and seemed happy to be there.
Landed 28R on time and parked up at SFO international terminal, my first time here. Reminded me of the Tampa set-up with monorail to the off-site hire building. Virgin-booked Hertz car hire was a breeze and picked up a pretty new looking Chrysler Pacifica that will take us on our West Coast Road Trip for the next 18 days. It held the 5 of us and 4 pieces of luggage.
A pretty easy journey, and a welcome return to flying with a competent airline.
